Have You Been Paying Attention?

14/1/20 bellaluna 21
This is voting emergency; please grab your loved ones/friends; register to vote; ensure everyone makes it to the polls for ALL the elections; this is not a drill.

There’s a lot going on, to be sure, what with the whole potential war with Iran due to the assassination-by-drone of General Soleimani; which kind-of accidentally, and tragically, led to 176 passenger deaths; but it certainly caused you to think about something other than impeachment or Ukraine or entire portions of Australia burning off.

But a lot has been happening that’s smaller, too; things that don’t affect the entire country or world as a whole, thus It fails to notice. It should, because in fact it was not just Mitch McConnell’s refusal to vote on President Obama’s Supreme Court Justice pick, but a wait-for-our-guy gamble (which paid off, too, btw) to stack the 114 vacancies they had backlogged by refusing to seat any judicial nominees the last year of Obama’s presidency.

In addition to that judiciary system, there’s also the immigration system: we’ve read (less lately) about kids in cages and deplorable conditions, but some immigration judges are leaving due to job conditions, and it’s the whole system.

Then we have the environment, from regulatory rollbacks to silencing scientists, there’s not a piece of publicly-owned land they wouldn’t like to sell off, to say nothing of the little things like mpg standards for vehicle emissions or repealing the clean water rule (all the while boasting we have ‘the cleanest air and water‘).

And I have been banging the drum about voting rights because it’s not gone away, nor has the abortion rights fight; and don’t kid yourself, kiddo, they’re all related:

The Republican Takeover of the Federal Courts Should Terrify You

If all that’s enough, the man is also looking to put his stamp on the postal service, though thankfully, not on a stamp (yet):

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-us-postal-service_n_5e18e358c5b6da971d15c76b?guccounter=1

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21 Comments

  1. There is so much to pay attention to, it’s hard to keep my head from spinning. The Trump administration started deporting asylum seekers to Guatemala. Regardless of where they’re from. With no heads up about where they are going or what to do there. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-us-is-putting-asylum-seekers-on-planes-to-guatemala–often-without-telling-them-where-theyre-going/2020/01/13/0f89a93a-3576-11ea-a1ff-c48c1d59a4a1_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

    • I actually cannot believe it. I know people say that, but I would not think of doing these terrible things, so reading about them happening (and being perpetrated by ‘us’) is disconcerting *and* disturbing, because these are the very things we are supposed to be AGAINST.

      And that is what disturbs me about so many arguments on the right: I refuse to believe that God smiles upon policies that kill women because they can; deny children and the elderly hot meals to save a few tens of thousand bucks; deny health insurance to the masses; encourage hate and xenophobia and misogyny and racism in our country and the world over – *I know* that is not theologically sound.

      So I cannot begin to wrap my head around the whole ‘religious right’, because it makes no sense to me.

      • And the Librul Media treats it like very disturbing news. I mean, I don’t expect them to editorialize everything, but why is this never called a crisis or emergency anymore?

    • I know that this sounds simplistic but I’m hoping the majority of the country comes to it senses and votes out Trump and his henchmen in the Senate in a blue wave. Then America and its representatives will begin to fix the things he did, improve on the things he didn’t get around to screwing up and making amends to the other countries. Americans and our ally countries will remember Trump like a crazy, abusive ex-boyfriend/phase never allow a minority of the population on a whim to repeat anything like that again.

      • I really hope so. I know there are a lot of huge emergencies should we take power in 2020, but I am going to be first and foremost trying to push my reps to make the structural changes required to prevent the Republicans from having such significant advantages, and also to protect our rights in general (like the House’s new Bill of Rights).

  2. The sheer volume of fuckery is by design, Hello America. It’s misdirection — pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Meanwhile, the man is engaged in rampant voter suppression: https://www.theroot.com/wisconsin-judge-orders-209-000-voter-names-to-be-purged-1840982179

    My personal opinion is that voter suppression is the most immediate threat we face now. If Trump and his GOP stooges get another four years, I don’t think it’s too much of an overstatement to say they may very well irrevocably damage this planet, both politically and environmentally.

  3. The only way we’re going to roll back any of this bs is to have the Senate too. Having a Dem prez would be great to stop the descent into insanity but without a Dem senate – nothing will be accomplished. That is where all of the money needs to be going. If any of these billionaire candidates were legit – they’d be giving millions to Dem senate candidates – not spending it on narcissistic power plays of their own. Mitch McConnell has the real power – he’s Kylo Ren while we’re still trying to figure out who the chosen one is.

    I’ve only found this poll by Politico – so I would love to find something that says otherwise.

    https://www.politico.com/2020-election/race-forecasts-and-predictions/senate/

    This scares me more than the presidency. And, yes, I’ve given money to Amy McGrath – hope springs eternal and all that.

    • Yeah. I think about reality a lot with this: even if we hold the House, Senate, and Presidency next year, that will likely not last more than two years (if it did, it would be historic). So we are going to be constantly on defense, fighting the fact that the Senate is structured to favor Republicans, as is the Electoral College. It’ll always be just clinging to what small majorities we can until there can be real structural change – and that change, unfortunately, has to come in the daunting task of amending the Constitution (to address the EC and Senate at least).

      Hold onto your butts, everyone.

      • I hate this comment, a lot. You libs are so out of touch with the real problems with America. You think we can fix our problems by changing the electoral college and addressing the senate (whatever that means)? When has this strategy ever resulted in real, structural change? You’re not the first person with the idea of changing everything from the inside.

        • …here’s the thing, trev – it’s very much not clear from that remark that you know what you’re talking about…in fact it suggests rather strongly that your voice would be muffled on account of having your head wedged so firmly up your ass…

          I know they say it takes all sorts but do feel free to take yourself & your sort & fuck off somewhere where calling people “libs” isn’t a sign of extreme dumbassery…everyone wins…except you apparently…but since you came all this way to paint yourself as a massive loser I wouldn’t want to deny you the fruits of your labor…

    • I’m giving $ to Amy McGrath too but I don’t think it will matter. McConnell will win, and he’s installed his protege Daniel Cameron as AG of Kentucky. Cameron hasn’t practiced law long enough to qualify but since McConnell owns the courts he was able to get the ruling he paid for. It’s believed he’s grooming Cameron for the governorship of KY and eventually his senate seat. And since Cameron is young that means we have around 40 more years of underhanded GOP tricks learned at the Turtle’s knee. (Do turtles have knees?)

  4. Frankly, I’m exhausted. There’s so much happening on the world stage that seems to be one massive fuck job after another with very little hope that anyone is going to care enough to actually fix it.

    Sometimes it seems like it’s all I can do to just get out of bed and go to work every day.

    • It is exhausting, sometimes, just trying to keep track.

      Hopefully, enough people are paying attention that we can get it fixed enough to fix it a little better.

      Stay strong!

      • …that Mueller She Wrote podcast I mutter about sometimes has a saying I like

        “vote in numbers too big to manipulate”

        but when it comes to the fine print of the Electoral College stuff & the concept of faithless electors – not to mention the great gerrymander divide – I’m honestly not clear where those numbers really need to get bigger…or why in the name of all that is sacred any-fucking-body is voting for more of this insane narcissistic melodrama we seem to have traded in to replace the concept of public service?

        • Thank you for sharing that podcast!

          (I hate the EC! We need to make t-shirts and donate the proceeds to fighting voter suppression and gerrymandering.)

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